Nick Lachey Says He’ll Coach Vanessa in the Delivery Room

And when he returned to co-host with Ripa on Tuesday, the excited dad-to-be kept the baby talk going.

Asked if he’ll be coaching Vanessa, 31, in the delivery room, The Sing-Off host, 38, outlines his game plan.

“I’ve been told – because that’s what happens now, I’m told things – that it’s going to be a waist-up situation, if you know what I mean,” explains Lachey.

“I’m gonna be there, I’m gonna be supportively there, holding hands, and coaching, breathing, all that good stuff,” he continues.
“But apparently I won’t be down below, seeing what’s happening. I’ll be up above, helping.”

“My work there is done!” he adds with a laugh. “I was successful there. So we’ll keep it waist-up.”

But he does have experience with all angles in a delivery room. Lachey told a horrified Ripa that he videotaped the birth of a friend’s child a few years ago.

“I asked him, ‘How do you want me to handle this, do you want me to get in there and get the detail?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’ We all got very close that day.”

Despite the up-close-and-personal biology lesson, Lachey says he had a surprising reaction to the experience — and one that’s sure to please his wife.

“I didn’t expect it to be what it was,” notes Lachey, “but it was a really incredible, awesome moment.”

Sorry, but that sounds incredibly insensitive on Nick’s part. He impregnated her, so he’s been “down there” for God’s sake! A woman’s vagina is not only for having sex–duh!! I’m all for being discreet if the woman doesn’t want to be videotaped while the baby is born, but he sounds so old-fashioned.

Melanie
on March 6th, 2012

If you saw the show it was all very light-hearted and fun. Basically Vanessa doesn’t want him on the business end and told him that. Obviously he doesn’t have a problem with deliveries if he taped his friend’s child’s birth for him.

Sarah S.
on March 6th, 2012

I didn’t see the show. Maybe I reacted to the beginning of the article too hastily. I didn’t want my husband to be on the business end either videotaping… My bad.

Kate
on March 6th, 2012

I think he should let her be pregnant for a little while before discussing delivery and stuff. Is she even out of the first trimester?

Angela
on March 6th, 2012

I told my husband I didn’t want him down there either. I didn’t realize while laboring with our first child that just because one’s water had broken didn’t necessarily mean that everything had come out (mine was more like a slow leak after the big gush)! I will never forget the look on his face after he’d come back from the bathroom and happened to take a gander at the pad under me while laboring. 🙂

L.B.
on March 6th, 2012

I’ve already basically told my husband to do the same thing. Coach and support the top half of me. Leave the bottom half to the doctor to do their business. And it has nothing to do with birth not being beautiful or anything like that. It’s just a preference that I happen to share with this couple.

Shannon
on March 6th, 2012

It wasn’t what he expected? Just what DID he expect?

TJ
on March 6th, 2012

Seems like he and Jessica are still in competition. Didn’t they both get engaged around the same time, announce they were getting married around the same time (although Jessica put it off) and now that Jessica is going to have a baby, they are too? Congrats to them though.

lac's mom
on March 6th, 2012

My husband also declared that he wasn’t going to go “down there”. Funny how things change in the moment. He was all over the place. I pushed for a really long time and at one point, the doctor and nurse went out to check on another mother and he was left alone with me. He jokes that he was encouraging me by saying “push” but then thinking to himself “but not too hard!”

Dee
on March 6th, 2012

Grow up people!

meghan
on March 6th, 2012

TJ, grow up.

Mira
on March 6th, 2012

The coaching husband metaphor really rubs me the wrong way. Doulas who’ve attended numerous births and have usually given birth themselves can coach a woman through child birth. But a husband who knows little and is most often just as inexperienced as the woman giving birth has no place being a “coach”. It sounds degrading and humiliating to women as it implies that men are better than women even at the one thing that only women can do.

I’m not saying that Nick means any of these things. I’m just saying that the entire metaphor is fundamentally problematic.

krissa
on March 6th, 2012

I left it up to my husband how much he wanted to see. They offered me a mirror each time and I refused. I didn’t want to see what was happening – feeling it was enough. I wasn’t going to make him look if I didn’t! lol!

He did the peek-over-the-waist and saw the babies being born, but from a more discreet angle.

Congrats to them – I really like this couple and wish them well!

Stella Bella
on March 6th, 2012

I kept my husband up near my head. He is not a person who can handle a little bleeding, so I didn’t think he’d deal well.

Marky
on March 6th, 2012

I used to work L&D as an RN, I’ve had some babies myself, and I’ve got grandchildren I saw being born, so I’ve kind of seen pretty much every way it can go. The word “coach” was coined to help fathers be a part of this amazing moment when the couple’s child is coming into the world. Fathers used to be thought of as “incapable” of sharing any part of this momentous time in the family’s life, until baby was bathed, dressed, and wrapped in a blanket. Now many fathers get to “catch” their babies.

Having lived long enough to see it every way, I believe teaching the dad how to “coach, help, be part of”, or whatever you want to call it, is a wonderful way to help dad be a part of the child’s life right from the beginning. Women claimed for many years they desperately wanted the fathers to be a part of the child’s life, but lately I hear quite a few women putting down the dads from the time they get pregnant, sometimes. They don’t want the dad to be a real part of the delivery “because a woman knows how I feel, what does HE know?”; they don’t want to let the dad feed the baby, “that’s my job, what are breasts for?!”, and they act as if the only person who can soothe the baby is themselves because “I’m the mom, he doesn’t know what to do!”. Well, you can’t have it both ways. You want them to be good dads, or do you just want them to pay the bills so you can be a good mom and to heck with them?

As a couple expecting a baby, Nick and Vanessa seem to be looking as this time as OUR pregnancy, OUR baby, OUR lives, and that’s a good thing!

Catca
on March 6th, 2012

Mira,

I think you’re over thinking this. The point to breathing, coaching, etc. isn’t to help the baby get out – it’s to help distract the mom so she has less pain. It doesn’t mean the man is better than woman, or even that he thinks he is. It’s simply a gesture of support. Men ask for support from the women in their lives all the time and there is no reason we shouldn’t ask for support from them as well. It doesn’t diminish our strength or abilities.

Nikki
on March 6th, 2012

TJ- Definitely grow up & move on. Nick has been very public and made everyone aware for years of his wish to have children, especially after experiencing his brother having his 2 kids. Vanessa has also made her wish for havin kids with Nick very clear for the 5 years they dated prior to getting married.

AND for the record Nick proposed and announced his engagement to Vanessa FIRST, as well as expressing they were ready to move on to this next stage in life so they could take the next natural step of having children.

Jessica is the one who then a month later decided to get engaged after Nick and subsequently popped up pregnant and put off getting married. So, if anyone is competing or following the other it’s Jessica.

However, in truth I think the only people competin are former nick/Jessica/Newlyweds fans who can’t accet that Nick & Jessica have moved on and want nothing to do with each other. Jessica made clear after Nick got engaged that their fans should allow them to move on in pice because they have. These are separate people who are moving on with their separate partners and making their separate, personal, lifetime decisions based on their life, circumstances, & dreams with their partner, with out concern, consideration, or bother to check whether or not it so happens to coincidently coincide with what their Ex happens to be doing.

Could Jessica’s fiancee’ have said her Ex just got engage d a month ago I should wait 6 mor months or a year before I propose or announce it so the Nick/Jessica as a couple fans will be ok with iit and we won’t be getting engaged within the same year? Sure, but how ludicrous. Should Nick & Vanessa say, oh Jessica got unexpectantly pregnant, we should put off our plans and dreams of getting pregnant for another year so we won’t have to have a baby in the same year as Jessica. That’s ridiculousness. These people don’t even speak to each other and haven’t spoken to each other in years. Nick & Jessica are as close to strangers as you can be and have still been married to each other in the past. Nick & Vanessa are living their lives, let them have this monumental moment that they have looked forward to for such a long time. Let Jessica and her fiancee’ have their separate moment as well.

Congrats Nick I’m so happy your finally getting to be a dad! I know you and Vanessa are ecstatic and will be great parents!

Mira
on March 6th, 2012

Catca and Marky, I’m all for men participating fully in the birthing process. Of course, they have a place in it and they should be active in it. I fully agree with everything both of you said.

I still dislike the “coaching” metaphor, though. Coaches don’t “help and support” players. They don’t simply share in the experience of playing the sport. They guide, lead, and, most importantly, they teach players how to play the sport better. That’s what rubs me the wrong way. My husband fully participated in my home birth, but he was certainly not teaching me how to give birth well. Giving birth is not a sport either. It’s much greater than that. So, while I understand that the coaching metaphor may have been a clever trick to get reluctant men involved 30-40 years ago, I think it’s time to retire the metaphor. I find it condescending to women.

Anonymous
on March 6th, 2012

Mira- No offense, but I think you’re taking what is just a simple expression WAY too seriously.

Marky- I agree with you entirely! I, for one, am very glad to see that dads are getting more and more involved in the birth process (and I’m very glad that Nick plans to be an involved dad from the get-go!). On a similar note, it confuses me a bit why so many women seem to not want their husbands/partners on the business end when they’re giving birth. I mean, if you’ve concieved a baby together, than odds are your husband has been on that end before.😉 So why the reluctance to have him be on the “business end” during birth? I’m not trying to be mean or anything, I’m honestly just curious about that particular thought process!🙂

Oh, and as long as we’re sharing stories about husbands looking or not looking, my father took a peek over the drape while I was being delivered via C-section…and he says it didn’t look that bad. In fact, his comment upon seeing the “work area” (my words, not his) was apparently, “It just looks like they’re cutting into chicken!” (fortunately my mom has quite a sense of humor!).

Jillian
on March 8th, 2012

Anonymous
Bc many don’t want their husband to have their husband see them in the state they are in (after delivery) for fear they will not want to return there because they can’t remove that image. I know someone whose husband had a hard time after seeing her after delivery. I think it’s horrible, but I know many men and women who will not have the birth viewed and I respect and understand.

Shannon
I can’t imagine when he went to the hospital for his friends babies birth he expected to be viewing and videotaping the baby being vaginally delivered! I have delivered 5 babies and each one has been interesting and a few have been not what I or my hubs have expected. Not many people expect everything that happens during delivery…. Heck, I can’t even expect everything that occurs during the Super Bowl🙂

Mary

Traci
on March 14th, 2012

I don’t see anything wrong with what Nick said. He’s a great guy and obviously a wonderful husband.

I’ve been in love with him since 98 Degrees.

As for competition with he and Jessica. It just happened that way. Nick and Vanessa were engaged November 4, 2010 and Jessica and Eric were engaged November 11, 2010. Now Jessica and Vanessa are both giving birth in 2012. WOW isn’t that amazing.